


Business of the Heart

by mliz18



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:20:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mliz18/pseuds/mliz18
Summary: Polly wondered if he’d flipped a coin, Grace’s life hanging in the air for a heartbeat.
Relationships: Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	Business of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished a TommyxOC fic and this is me just playing around while I work on a future project :)  
> Super short but I was just having some fun with it, enjoy!  
> ** contains dialogue from season 1 episode 6, which I do not own.

“What was he like, before France?” Grace’s voice was soft and sad and wistful all at once. She sat there in her nice coat with her soft hands that’d never seen a day of hard work, longing for what could never be. Polly pitied her. She pitied her, so she gave her the snippets she wanted, dangled them like a carrot.

“He laughed, a lot. He wanted to work with horses.” He’d gone away to war all vivid blues and greens, bright-eyed and full of mirth. Polly’s stomach turned at the warmth in Grace’s eyes, smiling as if she were on the inside. Grace couldn’t lay claim to his secrets and wants and dreams, she’d no right to that intimacy.

“He won medals.” Polly had to take a firm grip of herself so that she wouldn’t reach across the table to snake a hand around that creamy white neck. Hang the medals.

“Threw them in the Cut. Not a single man came back the same.”

The Tommy that laughed had gone away to France and never returned, left his laughter in the mud and shit, came back painted in muted greys and browns, remade under the stroke of an artist’s brush. Now he was just a wicked man. Wicked man with no regard for self-preservation, who left his family fretting and worrying and wringing their hands. Wicked man who held their love for him somewhere deep within that porcelain shell of himself, cradled and hoarded it like a dragon curling around its pile of gold. Wicked man who sometimes had them convinced he didn’t love them in return, even though Polly knew the love raged fierce and hot in that belly of his. He handed it out in ways he thought they wouldn’t notice - a bit of love to Ada here, slipped like a banknote into her pocket when she wasn’t looking, a handful of love to John there. He doled it out in winks and shoulder claps and hands ruffling through Finn’s hair. 

It was like he was rationing it, didn’t think he had enough to go around, but they wanted it so badly that they accepted those bits and thought themselves full. It was Tommy, so they loved him anyway, wickedness and all. But Grace had managed to coax it out of him. 

So she let Gace go. Because Tommy loved her, and because Grace had the poor luck to love him in return. 

  
  


She could see the sorrow clinging to him like a cloak, hanging off his shoulders as he stood there, talking about how the Lee boys took the pitches at the Worcester races, staring down at the bottle of champagne clutched in his hands like it was a snake and a handful of diamonds all in one. 

He toasted their success and clinked the bottle to the glasses held out in his brothers’ unsteady hands, but Polly just stared and stared, pity rising up high enough to lap at her neck. Pity that he’d flung himself headfirst into the beast’s curled paw. Pity that the bits of his broken heart were scattered across the floor of the Garrison like shattered glass, crushed to dust beneath the soles of Grace’s shoes. 

Polly ached to wrap her arms around him like she had when he was very young and still learning the world’s cruel lessons, beaten into him with harsh voices and his father’s angry fists. He would look up at her with eyes like jewels winking in his face, bewildered tears glistening like drops of ice on his lashes, bruises peppering his skin. He’d always understood horses better than people.

But this was the new Tommy with limbs like knotted wood that couldn’t easily bend to wrap around another person, Tommy who had no patience for affection with no purpose, who endured it only when he had to. So she watched him for a moment as the smile slid off his face and he leaned down to rest his forehead against the cool wood of the bar, like for a moment the weight of the world was so heavy his neck couldn’t bear it, bowing to the pressure. Warring with herself, she settled for snaking her hand over while he was looking away, resting her palm over the crown of his head.

“There’ll be others.” And she took the hand back fast, not entirely sure it wouldn’t cut her to the quick if he shook her off. 

She could see the child poking through when he heaved his head back up again, bewildered and hurt and bruised, because Tommy had learned the world’s final lesson. The cracks that his collision with Grace had carved into that porcelain shell still gaped, jagged and weeping around the edges like a fresh wound. But the crack was gone in a flash, hidden as Tommy rearranged his features, resettled himself. 

“To the others.” He raised the bottle. “All of them.” He was knitting himself back together right in front of her, patching the wall brick by brick, and even as they stood there it rose high between them. Polly wondered if he’d flipped a coin, Grace’s life hanging in the air for a heartbeat. Polly pitied them both.


End file.
